Dick Francis . . . his writing was formulaic, but he did it so well. Photograph: Jim Cooper/Associated Press

Torquay and the Channel ­Islands. Hardly the places I had in mind for summer holidays, but when you're 14 you don't get a lot of say in the matter. So I went, and remained almost entirely monosyllabic, a condition brought on by a combination of puberty and Dick Francis, as for two successive family summer holidays I did little but read his thrillers.

I'm not quite sure how I first came across Francis, who died on ­Sunday, aged 89. I suspect it was because I'd read all the Biggles and Sherlock Holmes books and was at a loose end and someone – I think it was my Granny – used to give my Dad the new Dick Francis in hardback every Christmas. So I picked one up and started reading. And didn't stop, working my way through his entire back catalogue – even his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, which I bought by mistake – with the ­couple of quid I was given before each holiday to get ­myself something to read.

It wasn't that I was interested in horse racing. I'm still not. But there was something utterly ­compelling about the books and for the five or six hours it took to read one I was hooked into the world of muddy steeplechase courses, usually Cheltenham or Plumpton, bent bookies, dodgy jockeys and sado-­masochistic owners.

The writing was formulaic; even I could see that. The hero – my favourite was Sid Halley – was always a rough diamond, the love interest was always a bit posher than the hero, rather like Dick's wife Mary, and fell for his charm and moral purpose, and the ­villains always got caught. But Francis did it so well. John Francome and Jenny Pitman thought they could cash in on his stardust and their thrillers never got out of the ­starting stalls.

Latterly, especially after Francis came out of his self-­imposed ­retirement in 2006, the plots ­began to creak and the ­heroes seemed out of synch; they ­belonged to the 60s and 70s, a world when ­villains drove Jags and wore ­balaclavas, not to one with mobile phones and online gambling. But I read them ­anyway; partly a Pavlovian ­response, partly out of loyalty. Because when a writer has helped you through adolescence, you can forgive a lot.